Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.

At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence.

Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.

Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.

These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning in life in a general way.

Man's last freedom is his freedom to choose how he will react in any given situation

The last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

A sound philosophy of life, I think, may be the most valuable asset for a psychiatrist to have when he is treating a patient.

Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.

Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.

One can choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.

God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies

The crowning experience of all, for the homecoming man, is the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear anymore—except his God.

Either belief in God is unconditional or it is no belief at all.

Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.

I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable.

Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy - it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.

The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing

Now, it is my contention that the deneuroticization of humanity requires a rehumanization of psychotherapy.

Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation.

The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.

A human being is a deciding being.

No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.